NENAGH'S Gary Ryan became the fastest Irishman over 100 metres when he set a new Irish record of 10.56 seconds to break Derek O'Connor's 13 year old mark in a race in Ljubljana yesterday. This time is only .02 of a second outside the Olympic standard for the distance. For good measure, he later clocked 21.10 seconds to finish second in the 200 metres behind England's Darren Braithwaite.
Susan Smith was again inside the Olympic standard when winning the 400 metres hurdles in a time of 56.75 seconds while schoolgirl Grainne Redmond achieved the world junior standard when clocking 14.12 seconds in the sprint hurdles.
Other encouraging performances came from Shane Healy, who was fourth in the 1,500 metres with three minutes 39.68 seconds while Daniel Caulfield set a new personal best when he was second in the 800 metres in 1 minute 47.83 seconds.
Niall Bruton displayed something approaching his best form when he finished fourth behind Noureddine Morceli over 1,500m in Lille on Saturday. Ireland's Mark Carroll was four places further back in the same event.
"I decided to stay back a little and then race over the latter part of the race and I am very happy with the outcome," Bruton said yesterday on his return home to Dublin. "I needed those few races."
The Algerian world record holder Morceli went off like the proverbial bat out of hell and covered the opening 800m in around one minute 51 seconds with the rest of the field forced, even at that early stage, to settle for the minor placings. Carroll was the more forward of the two Irishmen at that stage with Bruton just behind him.
"I decided to follow Mark for the opening part of the race as he always runs these kind of races smart," Bruton said. But with a little over a lap to race, the Dubliner took a more active interest in proceedings and passed Carroll to move closer to the Italian Gennaro Di Napoli.
"I felt good with 300m left but did not want to be out on my own for too long and so I waited. But with 150m left, I found myself kind of boxed in. But I hope to run even faster next week."
For the second time in a week the weather contrived to deprive Mark Mandy in the high jump, but, the Cannock based Irishman now knows that his current Irish records of 2.25m is firmly within his grasp after he cleared 2.24m when winning at the Welsh Games in Cardiff on Saturday.
Mandy did attempt 2.27m, which would have given him the `A' Olympic standard, but he narrowly failed in the breezy conditions - the wind was measured at over 5 metres per seconds for some events - which were not conducive to high jumping. There was a return to form by Antoine Burke when he finished second with 2.20m.
David Matthews, competing as a guest, finished second over 800m in a time of one minute 47.23 seconds, but the performance of Derek O'Connor, finishing fifth in 1.48.71, was clearly an indication of his potential at this distance. The event was won by Lapan Rotiche of Kenya with Matthews getting up to split two Kenyans late in the a race. David Kibet finished third in 1.47.45.
John Menton broke new ground when he took the discus with 51.24m, with Ger Nagle second with 47.94, and this perhaps may - be a discipline more suited to the UCD man.
Ed Healy ensured that it was a good day for Ireland's throwers with his victory in the hammer with 57.86m, a mere 14cms ahead of Ronald Quinlan, while John Farrelly took the shot with 14.88m.
